Tom Delay, Pay Raise & Purchasing Power

Tom Delay ...

"It's not a pay raise," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. "It's an adjustment so that they're not losing their purchasing power."

Who are ‘they’ in the above quote by Tom Delay?

The House on Tuesday agreed to a $3,100 pay raise for Congress next year — to $165,200 — after defeating an effort to roll it back.

Is Tom Delay becoming a populists? He does not want this colleague in congress to lose any purchasing power. What about minimum wage adjustment for working Americans?

“The legislation that Senator Kennedy introduced in the Senate and that I introduced in the House doesn’t go as far as I would like, but it is a critical first step towards restoring the purchasing power of the minimum wage, which is now nearing a 50-year low. The minimum wage hasn’t been raised in seven long years, the second longest period of Congressional inaction in the history of the minimum wage.

The purchasing power of minimum wage is now nearing a 50-year low, so using Tom Delay rational for supporting congressional pay raise he must now support minimum wage adjustment, right?

(Hat tip to Sirotablog)